President Trump on Friday rejected the notion that the billionaire Elon Musk should be given access to top-secret U.S. plans for a potential military conflict with China, even as he denied a report that such a briefing had been planned to be held at the Pentagon.
“We don’t want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you, if we did, we’re very well equipped to handle it,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “But I don’t want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much.”
Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla and a part-time government staff member, visited the Pentagon on Friday and met privately with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Mr. Musk was originally going to visit the Tank, a secure conference room at the building, for a briefing with top military leaders about the China war plan, according to two U.S. officials. A third said Mr. Musk was expected to discuss China, but provided no details beyond that.
The top-secret briefing was to include Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the head of the military’s Indo-Pacific Command; and Mr. Hegseth briefing Mr. Musk on the details of U.S. efforts to counter China in the event of a military conflict, according to the two officials. The discussion was expected to include other matters.
But the Tank visit was called off after The Times’s report on the visit, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Instead, Mr. Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, met with Mr. Hegseth and Admiral Grady in the defense secretary’s office.
It was unclear how the planned briefing came about and whether Mr. Musk was aware of the extent of information he was set to be shown.
Mr. Musk ultimately spent more than an hour with Mr. Hegseth, a remarkable amount of one-on-one exposure for an executive whose company has contracts with the Defense Department.
In an Oval Office event on Friday with Mr. Hegseth to announce a defense contract for a new Air Force fighter jet, both the president and the defense secretary called the story “fake.” Mr. Hegseth, who on Thursday praised the cuts Mr. Musk’s team has made at the Pentagon, insisted the visit was “informal” and was about efficiencies.
Mr. Trump made clear he had been caught by surprise by The Times’s report, saying he called his White House chief of staff and Mr. Hegseth to ask about it; he said they said it was “ridiculous.” But he also said that Mr. Musk — who has extensive business in China — should not be made aware of such sensitive information. It was one of the first specific statements from the president about what he would consider a bridge too far for Mr. Musk, who has expansive potential conflicts of interest created by a portfolio as a part-time government staff member and adviser.
Mr. Trump added, “He’s finding tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, but I certainly wouldn’t want, you know Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that, but it was such a fake story.”
And at another point, Mr. Trump said: “I might add that I think Elon, if you, if they ever wanted to do that, I think Elon wouldn’t do it. I think he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t want to put himself in that position.”
At the end of Mr. Musk’s Pentagon visit on Friday, Mr. Hegseth personally walked him out of the building. Neither Mr. Hegseth nor Mr. Musk answered shouted questions about whether they discussed China in their 80-minute meeting or if it was a classified briefing. Asked by a Times reporter after Mr. Musk’s departure what the two discussed, Mr. Hegseth said, “Why would I tell you?” He then walked inside.
One senior defense official, who was not authorized to discuss internal conversations and spoke on background, said Mr. Musk was there to brief the Pentagon officials and not the other way around. That briefing was about industrial policy and Mr. Musk’s experiences with his companies, the official said.
However, in his appearance later in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the purpose of Mr. Musk’s visit to the Pentagon was his government-shrinking effort.